When a ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ themed attraction went horribly wrong last year, it made headlines around the world. Yet little can compare to the disaster that inspired it, as immortalised in the 1971 documentary Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The behind-the-scenes footage of a chocolate factory tour is a terrifying glimpse into a world without health & safety.
The event safety management depicted in the film is some of the most negligent we’ve ever seen, yet more than 50 years later, Mr. Wonka and his enablers at the factory have yet to be brought to justice. We’re aiming to right that wrong with our list of the movie’s biggest health & safety issues—from dangerous dancing to a famously blocked pipe.
A sticky end
We understand that safety features don’t always look cool, but rules were written for places like the Chocolate Room. While Mr. Wonka sings about a place of ‘pure imagination’, ours were running wild with all of the ways someone could become seriously ill or injured. The food safety considerations alone hardly bear thinking about, from bacteria to wildlife infestation.
The biggest red flag however is the enormous river of chocolate that runs through the room. Most people probably wouldn’t imagine handrails or floatation devices in their chocolate dream room, and we aren’t sure you could make them edible, but they still need to be there. The fact that children could be allowed into a space with an unguarded river is incredible enough, but it’s also one with an evidently strong current.
When one unlucky child falls in, the chocolatey water is swift enough to carry him away and into a pipe, where he could easily have been crushed or suffocated. The insistence by Mr. Wonka that the pressure will clear him out of the pipe is only matched by his message to an attending Oompa-Loompa: that they fish him out before he goes ‘into the boiler’.
Risk rating: 8/10
Berry dangerous
Not putting guard rails around your river is one thing, but you’re not expecting people to fall in. Making food that could transform them into grotesque monsters feels like a different level of risk. That’s the fate of one Violet Beauregarde, who—not unreasonably after a room where everything is edible—makes a point of chewing some experimental, freshly-minted chewing gum.
You’d think ‘experimental’ in the case of food might mean taste or sensation, but no: she’s quickly transformed into a human juice dispenser. As she swells up and turns purple, Mr. Wonka reassures her distraught father that she simply needs to be squeezed before she explodes. Forget about our food safety courses or first aid training: a COSHH risk assessor wouldn’t touch this with a Hazmat suit.
Risk rating: 7/10
Fall from grace
The factory is a regular stage for musical set pieces, often at the most inappropriate moments imaginable. Every horrible incident that befalls a child on the tour is quickly set to music and dancing by the Oompa-Loompas, whose own employment status should be under some question. It should have been little surprise then that a child would eventually decide to join in, and make themselves a part of the show.
Having embarked on her own (very impressive) musical set piece, at no point do any of the adults attempt to stop her from moving around the factory floor, despite the clear and present risks, including huge stacks of boxes and unstable platforms. They simply watch on as she climbs one of the platforms before the floor gives way, and she falls to an unclear end down an unmarked or barricaded chute. That the other parents didn’t immediately leave is as much of an indictment of them as Mr. Wonka.
Risk rating: 9/10
Heavy lifting
The level of innovation seen at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory normally only happens during a war, and the results here are similarly destructive. Mr. Wonka has apparently overseen the invention of a drink that gives people the power of flight, but—quite rightly—deems it too unsafe for human testing. What he doesn’t do is make any effort to stop people testing it. As most of the party moves onwards, Charlie and his grandfather stay behind, and sample the ‘fizzy lifting drink’.
The pair take flight, and have a great time before realising that they’re on a collision course with a giant steel fan. Thankfully, they discover that burping makes them lose altitude, and make their way back to the ground. While the drink clearly shouldn’t have been on public display, Wonka did at least warn them this time—and the dangerous machinery wasn’t where a child would normally be able to reach it.
Risk rating: 6/10
One-way ticket
Having overseen safety at hundreds of major events, we can say with some certainty that it isn’t an easy process. Every risk factor has to be carefully assessed, with multiple stakeholders involved to cover every angle. You not only need staff on site to ensure people stay safe, but to plan every aspect of the event to prevent injuries, and ensure that any problems are dealt with quickly.
For an event of global significance, no safety planning seems to have gone into Willy Wonka’s factory tour whatsoever. As the points above have illustrated, any sane risk assessor who had gone through the factory would have scheduled it for demolition. The lack of safety provisions is particularly shocking given that many of the visitors were children, who would demand extra attention.
No responsible person is ever cited, and the response of Mr. Wonka himself to almost every incident is to chastise the victim. No action is taken to address the immediate and evident risks, and the tour is not abandoned, even as one child appears to have died. No wonder Mr. Wonka was looking to choose a new owner of the factory: he wanted to get out before the barrage of lawsuits.
Risk rating: 10/10